International Journal of Geosynthetics and Ground Engineering (2022) 8:13

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40891-022-00360-8

TECHNICAL NOTE

Development and Evaluation of Arduino‑Based Automatic Irrigation

System for Regulation of Soil Moisture
Hong‑Hu Zhu1 · Yuan‑Xu Huang2 · He Huang2 · Ankit Garg2   · Guo‑Xiong Mei3 · Hai‑Hong Song2

Received: 6 August 2021 / Accepted: 17 January 2022 / Published online: 31 January 2022
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022

Abstract
In cities, green infrastructure has been used to mitigate flood risk, improve water quality, and harvest precipitation as a
water source. Effective maintenance of green infrastructure requires optimal irrigation of plant root systems during the
prolonged drying period. Based on the measurement of soil moisture, various drip irrigation systems have been developed.
Surface irrigation, however, has the disadvantage of loss of soil moisture through evaporation. In addition, the growth of
plants is mainly dependent on subsurface soil moisture, especially within the root zones. Therefore, there is a need to develop
an automatic system regulating soil moisture at different depths. In this study, an Arduino-based irrigation control system
was developed to regulate the volumetric water contents of soil within a certain depth range. A one-dimensional soil col-
umn test was conducted to demonstrate its performance. The test results show that the system enabled the regulation of soil
water content within the specified range (12–20%) with an error of 2%. The error was further minimized by recalibrating
the upper limit of the system. This study provides an improved green infrastructure irrigation system to control the moisture
distribution within the soil subsurface.

Keywords  Automatic irrigation system · Subsurface · Soil moisture · Arduino

Introduction image, then calculates its wetness level and finally sends
the data to the microcontroller and the farmer’s mobile
A case study of Beijing shows that 53.1% of farmers phone. After three months of testing, it was found that
adopted engineering water-saving irrigation technolo- in comparison with conventional flood and drip irriga-
gies to cope with water scarcity, such as using automatic tion, the AIS could save nearly 41.5% and 13% of water,
irrigation systems (AISs) [1]. Process automation as respectively.
an improvement of irrigation control systems has been The upgradation of microcontrollers, soil moisture
applied for a long time [2]. Dominguez-Nino et al. [3] sensors, and their control programs can also enhance the
used differential irrigation scheduling using an automated efficiency of the irrigation control system [5, 6]. One
algorithm of water balance. Their results show that the component that has been widely used in irrigation control
crop irrigated by AIS had similar performances com- systems is Arduino. As a portable open-source electronic
pared with that managed by an experienced farmer. The platform, Arduino can be programmed, verified, and
AIS used by Barkunan et al. [4] initially captures a soil uploaded to microcontrollers to design embedded appli-
cations of irrigation control systems [7]. Many studies
combine soil moisture sensors with Arduino to establish
* Ankit Garg
ankit@stu.edu.cn irrigation control systems. Moisture content is often used
as a control parameter since it can be determined from
1
School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Nanjing the dielectric permittivity of water, which is greatly dis-
University, Nanjing 210023, People’s Republic of China tinct from that of air, soil minerals, or organic matter.
2
Guangdong Engineering Center for Structure Safety Thus, changes in volumetric water contents (VWCs) of
and Health Monitoring, Shantou University, Shantou, in situ soils can be detected using the sensor [8, 9]. In the
People’s Republic of China
study of Rahim et al. [10], two types of controllers have
3
College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Guangxi been compared, including the Fuzzy Logic Controller
University, Nanning, People’s Republic of China

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and On–off Controller. The former was more efficient depends on the transpiration demand of the atmosphere.
than the latter in terms of water usage. Fiber optic sen- For soil moisture that varies within the range of field
sors and digital image processing methods have recently capacity, the root water uptake is assumed to be maxi-
been developed for soil moisture measurement [11–13]. mum. In addition to the transpiration reduction function,
These methods further enhance the measuring accuracy another parameter that affects water uptake at different
and spatial coverage of irrigation control systems. An depths is root distribution. Several types of root distribu-
attempt was recently made to reduce the sensor size to tion functions, such as uniform [16], linear [18], and para-
avoid disturbance to the soil mass [14]. bolic [19], have been proposed. These root distributions
Currently, most irrigation control systems are based on signify the nonuniformity in root water uptake within the
the measurement of near-surface soil moisture [4, 15]. Sur- subsurface. Such a distribution will also influence the
face irrigation, however, has the disadvantage of loss of efficient usage of irrigated water, which is usually not
soil moisture through evaporation. In addition, the growth taken into account in previous systems [1]. In general,
of plants is mainly dependent on subsurface soil moisture, the water requirement for a plant is not uniform in their
especially within the root zones. Therefore, there is an urgent different life stages. Hence, it is also essential to regulate
need to develop an automatic system regulating soil moisture soil water contents at different depths. Such a system is
at different depths. an invaluable tool to control water distribution in “Green
On the other hand, to design an effective ground irrigation infrastructure”, which has been used to mitigate flood risk
system, it is vital to understand the water uptake and trans- and improve water quality and harvest precipitation as a
port process in plants. Water uptake by plant roots depends water source in urban areas. Normally, green infrastruc-
on the transpiration reduction function and root distribution ture consists of vegetated rooftops, roadside plantings,
[16]. The former signifies the relationship between normal- absorbent gardens, and biofiltration units for stormwater
ized root water uptake with soil moisture or matric poten- management [20]. They utilize various vegetation whose
tial [17]. When the soil moisture is lower than the optimum root depths may go up to 15  cm. Furthermore, irriga-
water content, the actual transpiration term model can be tion of green infrastructure is critical for its maintenance,
presented as: especially in a metropolis region where time and cost
become most important.
S(h) = 𝛼(h)Smax , (1) This study proposes a simple irrigation control system
where S(h) is the actual plant evapotranspiration; Smax is for regulating subsurface soil moisture. An Arduino-based
the maximum plant evapotranspiration; α(h) is the pre- control system that governs the VWCs of the soil at different
scribed transpiration reduction function; and h is the pres- depths within a specific range has been designed and devel-
sure head. Figure 1 shows the actual evapotranspiration oped. The system details are introduced, followed by vali-
model proposed by [16]. In the figure, h1 is the anaerobio- dation using a one-dimensional (1D) soil column test. The
sis point, while h4 is the wilting point. When h is above performance of the automated irrigation system for green
h1 or below h4, the root water uptake is assumed to be nil. infrastructure is then interpreted using the measurement of
The range between h2 and h3 is the field capacity, and h3 soil volumetric water content under automated irrigation.

Fig. 1  Typical transpiration
reduction function showing the
relationship between normal-
ized root water uptake with soil
matric potential

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Soil moisture sensors

Multiple soil moisture
sensors

PC with LabVIEW Arduino

3
Water tube at a USB Cable to computer for
programing interface, LabVIEW Relay module
4 depth of 5 cm

5 Water tube at a Transformer

Water pump
depth of 10 cm

Water tube at a
depth of 15 cm Circuit board

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

Fig. 2  a Processing flow chart and b control unit of irrigation control deals with the data and regulate the water pump based on data col-
system containing Arduinofg uno, soil moisture sensors, water pump, lected from soil moisture sensors
relay module, c, d LabVIEW Graphical interface in PC. Arduino uno

Methodology than the lower bound, Arduino sends a signal to turn on the
water pump. On the other hand, if the soil moisture is higher
Proposed Control Irrigation System than the upper bound, Arduino sends a command to turn off
the water pump. The purpose of setting up a soil moisture
Figure 2 shows the processing flow chart and the control range instead of just setting one limited value is to protect
unit of the irrigation control system containing multiple the relay module and the water pump and thus prolong the
soil moisture sensors (installed at various depths of soil), service life of the equipment. The EC-5 sensor fabricated by
water irrigation pump, Arduino Uno (the control unit) and Decagon Services Ltd. is adopted for measuring soil mois-
PC LabVIEW (Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering ture in terms of VWC. The rated accuracy of EC-5 is ±1–2%
Workbench). LabVIEW is a visual programming language VWC with soil-specific calibration and ±3% VWC for pot-
platform that was developed by national instruments (NI), ting soil (3–14 dS/m) [23, 24]. A water pump (220 V, 2.5 W)
USA [21]. Once a measurement is acquired, the written pro- was used to irrigate the soil. The delivery head of the pump
gram in LabVIEW can analyze it with the help of built-in is 0.4 m and can transport 200 L of water in an hour under
library functions. New algorithms can be designed, and the the maximum power. Due to the benefit of the LabVIEW
output can be displayed using a computer [22]. interface (Fig. 2c, d), it is relatively easy to send a command
In addition, a relay module and a power supply for to the water pump to switch it ON or OFF. The input device
Arduino are also needed. The working logic of this system (in this case, EC-5 sensor) is selected. Real-time data from
is mentioned as follows. (1) Arduino Uno receives the VWC EC-5 sensors can be displayed. The user interface allows
information from the soil moisture sensor; (2) Arduino Uno utilizing individual values or averages of three sensors to
deals with the data and then converts electrical signals into further examine whether the soil moisture at each depth lies
digital signals, which are sent to the PC by a USB cable; (3) within a specified range or not. Autocontrol can be switched
The data is compared with the range of soil moisture range on to control the water pump based on soil moisture readings
set in LabVIEW. If the current soil moisture reading is lower at each depth and corresponding criteria. To obtain the soil

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Table 1  Summary of various hardware utilized in soil moisture regulation (i.e., or irrigation) control system
Element Model number Power requirement Price (Chinese Main function
RMB)

Water content sensors EC-5 2.5–3.6VDS 10 mA 1500 Measuring soil volumetric water content
Relay module SRD-05VDC-SL-C 250 V 10A 4 Connecting Arduino with water pump
Transformer From 220 to 5 V 67 Regulating voltage
Circuit board DSP28035 U21A 30 Connecting the lead of components
Water pump 2.5 W 220 V 10 Drawing water
Tube 2
Wire 5
Total 1618

suction at the pumping depth, a soil suction sensor MPS-5 size of holes was selected to minimize its blockage caused
was placed at this depth and connected with ProCheck (a by soil grains. Ball valves, hose pipes and plastic pipes were
portable reading device). Measurements were recorded at used to make a composite for smooth passage of water from
30-min intervals during the testing period. a source (i.e., a bucket of water, as shown in Fig. 3a, c). For
Table 1 summarizes the cost and the main functions of simplicity, the initial VWC before the start of testing was
hardware utilized in soil moisture regulation (i.e., or irriga- kept close to the residual condition by subjecting the column
tion) control systems. The major cost of the system is from to natural drying for 60 days under no irrigation. The lower
EC-5, which is a relatively cheap and reliable sensor widely and upper limits were set as 12% and 20%, respectively. This
used in laboratory tests and field monitoring [25–27]. Com- particular range corresponds to the field capacity for silty
bining the economic benefits of reduction in water usage and sand soils [29]. It is assumed that moisture in the entire 1D
labor cost, this system seems to have the potential to over- column has come to equilibrium at residual water content.
come its hardware cost. Furthermore, it can also improve Soil VWC, soil matric suction, and weight of water in the
the performance of green infrastructure through enhanced bucket (i.e., water source) were constantly measured with
vegetation growth under regulated soil moisture. time. The irrigation control system was switched on to auto-
matically control irrigation based on detected soil moisture
Setup of the Soil Column for Preliminary Testing at different depths. The test was stopped after more than
of the Proposed Irrigation Control System three drying–wetting cycles.
The EC-5 calibration method is as follows: first, the sen-
Figure 3a shows an overview of the experimental setup sor is completely immersed in water. At this time, the indica-
containing a 1D soil column [25 cm (height) and 20 cm tor number in LabVIEW is the highest value, and the average
(diameter)] connected with the proposed irrigation control value is obtained by placing EC-5 into the water repeatedly,
system (Fig. 2b). Holes were drilled at the bottom of the test which is 100%. Secondly, the sensor is completely placed
container to allow drainage of water. Since this experiment in a sandy loam that is oven dried at 105 ℃ for 24 h. The
aimed to evaluate the functioning of the proposed irrigation sensor is also placed repeatedly to obtain an average value of
control system, the test soil was compacted at 70% degree 0%. Finally, the lowest value was subtracted from the high-
of compaction with a soil density of 1.3 g/cm3. Similar com- est value to determine the corresponding calibrated range
paction levels are often adopted in green infrastructure (i.e., in LABVIEW. The range was divided into 100 equal parts
green roofs [28]). The soil selected for investigation is silty for determining the corresponding values in LabVIEW for
sand, which contains approximately 92% sand, 7% silt and 12% and 20%.
1% clay by weight. The soil suction sensor (TEROS 21) consists of an oscil-
Three acrylic tubes (inner and outer diameters of 8 mm lator (for indirectly measuring dielectric permittivity and
and 10 mm, respectively) were inserted in the soil column water content) and a piece of porous ceramic disk with a
from sides at different depths (5 cm, 10 cm and 15 cm, refer known water release curve. During suction measurement,
to Fig. 3b) for irrigation. These tubes were inserted into the the oscillator is used to generate an electromagnetic field,
soil up to the column center. These tubes have minute holes which charges the ceramic disk. The stored charge is then
(perforated) facing downward to allow water flow by gravity. used to deduce the dielectric permittivity and correspond-
The hole size was determined based on trial experiments, ing water content. When the water in the surrounding soil
which were conducted in a pot to check smooth water flow reaches equilibrium within the ceramic disk, the water
under similar soil conditions. Based on trial experiments, the content of the porous material is then determined using

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USB cable to Acrylic tube

Arduino
computer for
L=15 cm D=10 mm
programing One cm one hole d=8 mm
LabVIEW No sealing
Procheck
D1=5 cm

D2=10 cm
Water pump

Modified plastic D3=15 cm

Electronic balance
bucket filled with soil

Crosswise: open
Vertical: close

Soil moisture
Water pipe

(b)
sensors

(a)

(c)
(d)

Fig. 3  Experimental setup for preliminary testing of newly developed automatic irrigation control system

dielectric permittivity. This water content is further con- 1. The water distribution method was changed to subsur-
verted to soil suction based on the known water release face drip irrigation in shallow soil layers to reduce the
curve of the ceramic disk. Saha et al. [30] demonstrated that loss of water due to evaporation. This method allows
the sensor can reliably measure soil suction up to 1700 kPa the transport of water directly to regions along with an
(i.e., beyond the normal wilting point of 1500 kPa). The option to regulate water at different depths. Such regu-
error of the soil suction sensor measurement is ±10% of the lation can be utilized to distribute water in the ground
actual reading (i.e., +2 kPa) [31]. according to the actual plant root density distribution.
It should be noted that since each part of the system is Based on the practical needs of green infrastructures,
independent and can be modified based on the requirements the theoretical core of the automatic irrigation system
[32, 33], it has the potential to be used in green infrastructure is the relation of plant root water uptake rather than the
(i.e., green roofs). It will be relatively easy to tune the set- evaporation dissipation of plants in most existing irriga-
tings (upper and lower limits, rate of water pumping, etc.) tion systems.
according to the actual requirements of a given vegetation. 2. Compared with large-scale automatic irrigation systems,
It should be noted that the sensor should be compatible with the new design is more accurate, which makes it more
Arduino Uno. In summary, the major differences between targeted to meet the actual need for green infrastruc-
the new irrigation system and the existing systems are as tures.
follows:

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Results and Discussion

Figure 4 shows the variation in soil VWC (at 5 cm, 10 cm

and 15 cm depths) and weight of irrigated water with respect
to elapsed time. It can be found from the figure that after
approximately 50 ms (ms), there is a sudden increase in
VWC at all depths. The increase in VWC almost coincides
with the loss of weight of water in the bucket. There is likely
a minimal delay of approximately 30 ms that is caused by
processing by Arduino Uno [34]. Nevertheless, such delays
have an almost insignificant impact on soil moisture regu-
lation. Processing delay may be more crucial for Arduino
application in monitoring heart rate [34]. However, in such
systems, the effect may be insignificant due to the relatively
lower permeability of soils. It can be observed that VWC
varies between 17 and 24% for all cases. Furthermore, it
was also found that the variation rate in VWC is slightly
higher at shallower depths (i.e., 5 cm) than at deeper depths
(10 cm and 15 cm). This is similar to that observed by [35].
The irrigated water for the first time was 331 g, 583 g and
623.5 g at depths of 5 cm, 10 cm and 15 cm, respectively. In
addition, the amount of irrigated water (for 150 h of testing)
was 1333 g, 1373 g and 1072 g at depths of 5 cm, 10 cm
and 15 cm, respectively. Considering the errors in measure-
ment (±5%), the control of the proposed regulation system
appears to be reasonable. This implies that there is a higher
need for the regulation of soil moisture at shallower depths
for crops with lower root depths. The relationship between
VWC and soil suction (Fig. 5) follows a trend that is consist-
ent with other similar soils [36]. Soil suction (Fig. 5) appears
to remain less than 10 kPa, which is just at the lower limit of
measurement accuracy of the MPS-6 sensor. It is reasonable
to assume that the suctions remain more or less similar at all
depths, considering the accuracy of the measurement probes.
Under a flow rate of 200 L/h, a tube of 2 m causes a
minimal delay in pumping the water. This is because, in the
first irrigation, AID needed to pump water until the VWC
reached 20%. When the VWC is 3% higher than the higher
limited value (refer to Fig. 4a), there is still a large amount
of dry soil in the 1D column, which will create a total head
gradient for the downward movement of water. This further
causes VWC to decrease at shallower depths. In contrast,
if VWC is 3% less than the higher limit value, VWC is still
within the desired range. In the subsequent time when AID
needed to pump water to keep the VWC within 12–20%,
there was still some water that existed in the tube, and its
water level was slightly lower than the irrigated depth. The
time spent transporting water into the 1D column was found
Fig. 4  Volumetric water content and irrigated water vs. time at differ-
to be less than 1 s. Due to this phenomenon, VWC is seldom
ent depths of soil higher than the higher limit value.
Based on Fig. 4a, b, c, although the irrigation frequency
decreases with an increase in depth, the ability of the

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irrigation control system to maintain soil moisture increases.

In general, VWC tends to remain within the range of the
100% root water extraction rate most of the time. This indi-
cates that compared to sensor sensitivity, the stability of sen-
sor input data is more critical to determine the suitability
of the irrigation control system and the layout of sensors/
water irrigation tubes. However, it was also found that the
interreplicate variability (i.e., the fluctuation in output values
among units of the same sensor subjected to essentially the
same condition) may be a major source of uncertainty in
sensor data for these cases [37].
Furthermore, when the VWC drops below the lower lim-
iting value, the water pump is turned on (not shown in the
figure), which allows water to flow from the bucket into the
soil at a particular depth. It should be noted that the readings
of VWC are almost consistent with the reduction in water
level in the bucket. However, the soil VWC continues to
rise and sometimes goes beyond the upper limiting value.
This is expected since water will continue to pump from
the bucket until the value of the moisture sensor reaches
the upper limiting value. Although this loss is minimal, it
is crucial for field applications. To overcome this problem,
trials were conducted to manually calibrate or redetermine
the “virtual” upper limiting value (to be set in LabVIEW) so
that there was no excess irrigation. Hence, the upper limiting
value was reduced by approximately 3% to minimize any
extra loss of moisture. In general, as observed from dry-
ing–wetting cycles, soil moisture can be regulated within a
specified range with minimal error. It should be noted that
the current study mainly demonstrates the applicability of
the proposed irrigation system.
During the preliminary field experiments, the same irri-
gating method (soil type, irrigation rate, irrigation depth and
sensor setting depth) was used. Water flowed approximately
1 m in 20 s, and the irrigation center was restored below the
anaerobic point within an hour. It can be concluded that this
irrigating system has potential in-field applications. Future
work is needed to validate such systems with plant growth
in the field.

Conclusions

The current study demonstrates a simplified control system

for regulating soil moisture within field capacity at differ-
ent depths. This system was based on Arduino Uno, which
processes and regulates soil VWCs within specific ranges.
The range is set using LabVIEW, which involves visual
Fig. 5  Volumetric water content vs. soil suction at different depths of programming. A simple 1D column experiment validates
soil the functionality of the proposed system. Drying–wetting
cycles were simulated using the automated irrigation con-
trol system. It was observed that the system was able to
maintain soil moisture within a 100% root water extraction

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Page 8 of 9 International Journal of Geosynthetics and Ground Engineering (2022) 8:13

rate for most of the time irrespective of depth. The range of long-root grass. Environ Geotech. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1680/​jenge.​
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